White House Announces Security Pact With Mexico

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: March 22, 2002

EL PASO, March 21—
The White House announced a new border security accord with Mexico today intended to weed out terrorists and smugglers but speed up legitimate goods and travelers, many of whom now wait two hours or more to cross into the United States.

President Bush previewed the announcement at a raucous, campaign-style airport rally in this border city in his home state before leaving later in the day for Monterrey, Mexico, for a conference on global aid to the poor. Mr. Bush is to announce the ''smart border'' accord formally with President Vicente Fox of Mexico in Monterrey on Friday.

''We want the legal commerce, the people who travel back and forth on a daily basis, the brothers and sisters on both sides of the border, the relatives that have been coming back and forth for years, to be able to do so in an efficient and easy way,'' Mr. Bush said to hundreds of cheering civilians and troops from nearby Fort Bliss in a packed airport hangar.

But he added that ''we want to use our technology to make sure that we weed out those who we don't want in our country -- the terrorists, the coyotes, the smugglers, those who prey on innocent life.''

Coyotes is the term used for people who illegally smuggle immigrants across the border.

The new accord, similar to one between the United States and Canada announced in December, would expand the use of high technology on the 1,951-mile United States-Mexico border. Regular cross-border commuters would be issued an electronic pass, as would some short-haul truckers. That would free border guards to spend more time inspecting suspicious people and goods, White House officials said.

None of the 19 hijackers who commandeered the planes on Sept. 11 are known to have entered the United States through Canada or Mexico, but worries over the security of the borders intensified after the attacks.

''I want this border to be modern,'' Mr. Bush said in El Paso. ''I want it to have the very best technology. I don't want it to be a neglected part of our country.''

Money for the new technology and security would come from $40 billion in emergency spending that Congress approved last year after the attacks. The White House estimated that $1 billion of that $40 billion would be spent on border security. In addition, Mr. Bush said that he was asking Congress for $5 billion more for airport and border security as part of a $27 billion emergency request that his administration sent to Capitol Hill today. If approved, White House officials estimated the additional amount to be spent on border security at $50 million.

After his speech, Mr. Bush toured a United States Customs Service cargo dock where he saw some of the new technology in use. Inside a three-story structure, Mr. Bush watched the demonstration of an X-ray machine, similar to a giant CAT scan, that is used for inspecting trucks for contraband. ''Very interesting,'' Mr. Bush said. Customs officials said that the machine could inspect 10 trucks an hour.

Mr. Bush is to leave Monterrey on Saturday morning for Lima, Peru, despite a bombing that killed nine people on Wednesday night near the American Embassy there.

''You bet I am going,'' Mr. Bush said in the Oval Office moments before he left the White House this morning. ''You know, two-bit terrorists aren't going to prevent me from doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in the hemisphere.''

White House officials said they had spoken with security personnel in Peru and had determined that it was safe for Mr. Bush to travel.

At Andrews Air Force Base, Mr. Bush, his wife, Laura, and Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state, met with the family of two Americans killed last weekend in a church bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan. Mr. Bush and his wife spoke with Milton Green, the director of the computer section at the American Embassy in Islamabad, and his young son. The Americans killed were Mr. Green's wife, Barbara Green, and her daughter, Kristen Wormsley, a senior at the American school. Mrs. Green was an employee in the human resources center at the embassy.

The father and son, Mr. Bush said, ''lost a wife and a mother when they were going to church, when they were praying to the Almighty God.'' Mr. Bush added that ''this is a dangerous world'' and ''too many people are losing their lives to murderers.''

Photo: President Bush watched a demonstration in El Paso yesterday by a customs inspector, Irma Banks, of how a truck is checked for contraband. (Associated Press)